Iceland Aurora Photographic

The magic cloth technique refers to the dodging and burning of a digital sensor during exposure.

The magic cloth technique was born out of the need to get the image right in the camera but to still increase the dynamic range of a scene. Under normal circumstances, the top part of a landscape is brighter than the lower half. Even with a mirror lake the difference can be a couple of stops. In order to get the best exposure of both the land and the sky, photographers have traditionally used filters which are darker at the top and clear at the bottom. These are called Graduated Filters (grad) and although they come in different colours, the most popular are Neutral Density (ND – Grad). Neutral density adds no colour to the scene. Aside from different colours, Grad filters come in different strengths – measures in stops. They also come as soft or hard grads.